Workshop shares experience in corrupt asset recovery
A workshop was held on November 15 in the northern province of Quang Ninh to share experience in asset recovery in corruption and economic crime cases.
From 2013 to October 2022, the total sum of money that must be recovered in corruption cases stood at about VND130 trillion (US$over 5.2 billion), of which over VND60 trillion had been confiscated. In 2022 alone, nearly VND15 trillion has been recovered, mostly from the cases under the monitoring of the central steering committee on anti-corruption, statistics show.
Tran Thi Phuong Hoa, Deputy Director General of the Justice Ministry’s General Department of Civil Judgment Enforcement, said asset recovery in corruption and economic crime cases is an important task since if asset is not recovered, the effectiveness of the corruption fight will be limited.
Talking via videoconference, Hyun Won Kim, coordinator of the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), pointed out that despite governments' efforts, corruption is currently the biggest obstacle to global socio-economic development. An estimated US$1 trillion is spent on bribery while about VND2.6 trillion is stolen due to corruption globally each year.
Tran Quoc Thai, Deputy Director of Hanoi’s civil judgment enforcement division, recommended the process for dealing with asset in corruption and economic crime cases be streamlined to shorten the time needed for asset recovery and ease pressure on civil judgment enforcement bodies.
Nguyen Kim Sau, a division head of the Supreme People’s Procuracy, said that to improve asset recovery, leaders of Party committees and agencies need to work closely with prosecution, civil judgment enforcement, inspection, and auditing bodies in corruption discovery, settlement, and asset confiscation.
Coordination should also be enhanced in asset verification and the application of specialised measures to ensure that asset recovery can be conducted right from the very first stage of handling crime reports and during the case settlement process, he added.
Hoa said the most comprehensive solution is to press on with legal regulations and issue a particular legal document regulating procedures for asset recovery right from the stage of handling crime reports in order to prevent the dispersion of illicit assets and ensure the maximum recovery of stolen asset.
At the workshop, UNODC pledged to cooperate with the Justice Ministry and relevant parties to step up the recovery of stolen assets to minimise corruption and bribery and promote sustainable development.